I’m a social worker turned financial planner who uses both skill sets to help folks prepare for the mental, social, and physical, as well as the financial aspects of retirement. I’ve written a book, The Naked Retirement, run a website and webinars through the RetirementProject.org, and help investors navigate the rocky waters of Wall Street as a fee-based registered investment advisor, at SYNERGOS Financial Group.

Saying Goodbye To Retirement Traditions

Remember the good old days? When people worked for the same company for 30 or 40 years? Walked off the job with a fancy plaque and gold watch engraved with their name and company logo? When family and friends would gather together to celebrate a person’s journey into their golden years? Well, let me put it to you gently, the gigs up and retirement will never be the same.

The Gold Watch

Apparently, the tradition of giving gold watches originated back to the 1940s and The Pepsi Co. The concept of “you gave us your time, now we are giving you ours,” made sense when people stayed with a company for three or four decades and the price of gold was about $34 an ounce. Today, the average length of job tenure is roughly five years and the price of gold hovers near $1,600 an ounce, a pricey change that would either put more companies out of business or see more watches end up in a pawn shop.

Smart phones and active retirees are also pushing the gold watch to extinction. Personal electronic devices not only provide the time but also keep retirees connected to family and friends and serve as an invaluable tool to keep the grand children occupied when they come to visit. Finally, the last nail in the coffin is that people today retire younger and with bigger bucket lists than ever before, meaning they other things to do than watch time go by.

Retirement & Other Party Invitations

Remember when snail mail used to be important? When it was the life line to your social life, filled with invitations to everything from retirement and birthday parties to anniversaries and weddings? Well, if you think you’re losing friends or missed a recent invitation because of a glitch in the postal service, it might be time to climb out from underneath that rock you’re living under.

Like the gold watch, actual invitations that you can hang and organize on your fridge are disappearing. Fact is, if you’re not on Facebook, don’t check your email often enough, or don’t have a phone with texting capabilities you shouldn’t be surprised if your social calendar isn’t quite as full as it used to be. With social media, text, and email you can literally create a party or event in mere days and have a head count solid enough to satisfy the caterer. The old-fashioned method usually takes weeks and like the Pony Express, will no longer be part of the new retirement culture.

Fight technology if you want, but don’t complain if you find yourself alone and frequently checking your gold watch as life passes you by.

Pensions and Entitlements

In the old days, there was a bond between employers and employees… a shared sacrifice where the employees would exchange their best and most productive years for pensions and health insurance (as well as social security) after they retired. However, what most people don’t realize is that company benefits such as pensions and health insurance, as well as entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare were originally created when life expectancy was well below the national retirement age of 65. People retired and did nothing but relax because they were likely to die within a couple years, if they made it that long. Companies, along with the government could almost expect to never to pay a dime to most people nor face years of hefty health insurance related claims.

Pensions and entitlement programs weren’t designed to be fair or equal, they were designed to get less productive people off the job and make room for younger workers. Now people are living well into their 80’s, collecting payments for longer periods of time and carrying with them ongoing medical needs with constantly rising costs… and it’s a crushing burden that we all know and realize will change.

Unlike gold watches and hand-held invitations, pensions including those of state and local governments as well as programs like Social Security and Medicare won’t vanish, they’ll simply become the illusion they used to be… something you read and hear about, but rarely ever get.

Whether you realize it or not, the practices and traditions that once made retirement special and alluring are losing their luster. Retirement traditions like the gold watch, hand-held invitations, and entitlement programs are becoming like old records, drive-in movies, and gelatin molds; just distant memories of a past. A fact that is best characterized by William Shakespeare famous quote, “What’s past is prologue,” or a humble beginning for the best of what’s to come next.

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